Our Needs in San Vincente - Forestal
We are always seeking new opportunities to serve our community with the love of Christ. The following is a list of current project needs. Please pray for these needs to be met, and if you can help in any way please contact us.
Land/Building
Currently the amount of space we have is simply not enough to contain our dreams and goals for serving the community. Currently we operate out of a small church, with one floor above it where we hold our various classes. The community technology center is at the moment set up in one of our leaders living rooms. With the space we have, our other goals simply cannot be met. We are working towards starting a training center, offering skilled trades programs to help provide employment to the community. We need more space to run our courses, as our little 'upstairs room' becomes crowded quickly. Having a more formal space for the techonolgy center might allow us to do more, possibly provide employment, as well as offer our technology training courses. Also, our small little church is bursting at the seams on sundays, and while we are content in the Lord, we feel a slightly larger space would help us better accomodate the new members that are coming.
We have a few plots of land in mind, with the average price of approximately $20 000 USD to buy the land outright. In order to secure a loan, a down payment of at leaste 20% or $5000 USD is needed. We currently have $1000 set aside for this land, and working slowly at saving the remaing %4000 for a down payment. Once we have a new piece of land, our dream is to build the three story training center providing a number of services. The total cost of the three story building will be about $55 000.
Computors
Currently our small 'technology' center is only equiped with 3 outdated desktop computers. Our goal is to provide 10. This will not only help to provide more access to the community, but also help us cover out monthly costs, as allowing 10 machines to run at one time will help to provide a greater income. The center is not-for-profit, offering a much lower price than the average center, but we still need to cover our costs! We need a total of ten computers, at a cost of $400 USD each, totaling $4000 USD. However, we have 3, making a total of $2800 to buy the missing 7.Community Store
One of the root reasons why many families find it hard to get an adequate amount of food to survive is simply a lack of close access to a market. In order to shop, families are forced to take public transit, which costs them, or they are forced to buy in ‘corner store’ type shop, where the prices are much harder. Because many work long hours, seven days a week, it is hard for them to find time to go to the market, and thus often buy in corner stores. We hope to one day be able to start a not-for-profit community market, offering local access to healthy foods at low prices. Currently we have no land, nor capital to start the not-for-profit community store. However we are confident that if we had the capital of $5000, the store would soon be up and running in conjunction with the community cooperative which has offered to help us with a location.
Volunteers
Teams: We always encourage teams, whether they be university/study based groups, or short term missions groups (both youth or adults) to pay us a visit. There is always lots to do, from construction to visiting to help us along, and give you a valuable experience.
Long Term: We also encourage long term missionaries/volunteers who are interested in working with us. We need english teachers to help us continue our free english courses. We also would love help from any sort of volunteer, so feel free to contact us to talk about it.